Climbing

The Moonboard is becoming a common sight at climbing gyms around the country. On the surface the Moonboard is just a steep training board, but behind the scenes there’s some secret sauce in the form of the app and lighting system that are used for recording, sharing and displaying problems with users all around the world.

Apps...sharing information...that smells like some interesting data! Because Ben lives just down the road from Lattice Training HQ we thought it would be fun to team up and have a look at some of the data behind the Moon Board. To kick things off Ben has kindly let us have a peek at his Moonboard logbook so we can see what he's been up to on the board!

First thing first, let's see how hard Ben tends to climb on the board!

From this distribution, it looks like Ben tends to warm up between 6B+ and 7A/+, after that the number of problems at each grade decreases suggesting that things get trickier for him from 7A/+ upwards. Given that Ben’s climbed up to 8B+ outdoors it’s interesting to note that there’s not a lot of harder problems in his logbook. It might be informative to take a look at how many attempts he tends to take on things as this will tell us a lot about the style of his sessions.

Looking at this we can see that Ben tends to flash a large proportion of the problems he tries, even at higher grades. This would explain why there’s not a lot of 8th

Just had my morning coffee and I’m already running around the house looking for my climbing shoes…found them! MoonDust check, chalk bag check, more coffee check… Crash pad? No, not today. It’s setting day, I need my drill! 

I love climbing outside, however, lately I’ve been spending most of my days on route setting. It became a little bit of both passion and work and most of all, a big challenge for me. But I like a good challenge. 

From summer till now, I have done quite a few trips around Europe (Germany, Austria, Spain) and US (Texas) for all kinds of setting - commercial setting, setting for training camps and competition setting. The highlight was definitely WYCH in Innsbruck in September, where I got a chance to set with Jacky Godoffe and all other setters. It was a great learning experience for me as I learnt all about route setting and also a lot about myself. 

Moving onto the end of the year, I will need to squeeze in some outdoor climbing as well. Fresh air is needed every once in a while. So the plan for December is a quick visit to Slovakia to set a training camp and then another trip to the US where I have planned a short trip to Horse Pense 40. It should be really fun!

Setting in WYCH , Innsbruck (Germany)

Innsbruck setting crew

The MoonBoard Master 2017 is the first climbing competition that will be simultaneously live streamed from MULTIPLE locations around the world. It’s also the first time YOU will have the opportunity to watch and climb the competition problems LIVE as they’re revealed. Ever watched a climbing competition and wanted to try the problems yourself? Perhaps you've even thought, ‘I bet I can top that..’. The chance will be yours, from 9 December onwards, on any MoonBoard with the MoonBoard Masters 2017 hold setup.

#MoonTeam athlete, Michiel Nieuwenhuijsen, climbs at Albarracin which has one of the best boulder areas in Spain. Within climbers, it is rated for the next best bouldering area in Europe, behind Fontainebleau. Albarracin is well known for it's ancient sandstone blocks that are solid and situated in a forest. Michiel climbs Muten Röshi, 8a+.

Muten Röshi 8a+. Albarracin from Michiel on Vimeo.

#MoonTeam athlete, Michiel Nieuwenhuijsen, climbing at Albarracin in Spain. Albarracin has one of the best boulder areas in Spain. Within climbers, it is rated for the next best bouldering area in Europe, behind Fontainebleau.

Albarracin is well known for it's ancient sandstone blocks that are solid and situated in a forest. Michiel climbs 'The Indian Secret Garden (direct)' which is at the beginning of the video, and then 'Mufasa', both graded at 8B. 

The Indian secret garden direct 8b & Mufasa 8b. Albarracin from Michiel on Vimeo.